Saturday, March 21, 2009

A Little Research In Franklin Co., Tennessee

Miriam at AnceStories posted an entry on her blog regarding Arlene Eakle's new blog focusing on Tennessee research. Since I'm in Tennessee and trying to organizing my research projects, this was a welcome post.

On Friday, March 20th, we drove from Chattanooga, TN, to Winchester, TN, in Franklin County, for a little genealogical research. (I researched; Jim drove). My destination was the Register of Deeds in the Courthouse, 1 South Jefferson Street, Winchester, TN. The current Register of Deeds personnel directed me to Archives in the basement. Not only were the older deed books housed there, there were volumes of other genealogical relevant materials used to find marriages, wills, and other, yet unexplored (by me), items of interest.

There was a very cordial and genuinely helpful woman assigned to the Archives (I was there for several hours; she and I had a pleasant conversation and yet I neglected to get her name -- duh). I should mention that I used the "hands on" approach to the records while other researchers who stopped by wanted a specific record and wanted it pulled for them.

The first blog post from information found at the Franklin Co., TN, Archives can be found here and evolved into a second post found here.

Here's a sample Franklin Co., TN, deed, referring to property once owned by my ancestor, Ransom Scroggins Rice. [This was obtained through the mail a few years ago, not from my on-site research]

Last year I found the indexes for Project Preservation's Loose Records at the Franklin County Library, as well as several vertical files for various surnames and local newspapers on microfilm. The genealogical library's hours are 11 - 4, Monday - Friday. A sample of my findings from last year can be found here.